Ok, so I’ve been contemplating the practicality of adjusting my computer usage to reduce my “proprietory footprint” and I figured it was worth re-visiting this topic to mention the conclusions I’ve had so far. In order to do this I will address each of the forementioned issues and describe what I can see to do about this.
1) mp3 files
Whilst it would be difficult to restart my music collection using open formats and re-collect all of my music I have decided that I can make a start by not encoding any more files in mp3 or m4a format. This seems obvious really, but it means that I shant be able to put any of my new music onto an mp3 player and definately not my iPod shuffle…
2) iPod shuffle
I will be getting rid of this piece of hardware. I’m going to start by offering it as a swap on Gumtree. I don’t get any decent offers then I will pass it on in some other way and get a replacement.
3) Non-free video codecs
I really cannot see any way that I can avoid the fact that other people choose to use locked-down video formats. Any ideas?
On a side note, I noticed that YouTube allows you to upload videos in ogg theora format. Go YouTube! (There are a few videos on there of people demonstrating this fact too)
4) NVIDIA 3D Graphics driver
When I upgrade my video card I will be happy to put in the effort, and probably even pay more, to buy a video card that has native 3D support in Linux. For now I am going to carry on using the NVIDIA closed-source video driver because, frankly, I want 3D support…
5) Sibelius music notation software
This is another problem that I can’t see a solution to… at the end of the day, work is work.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: FOSS, freedom, Linux
